They Dream of School, and None of the Dreams Are Good

In this survey, 128 adults described their recurring dreams of being in school.

Dreams of being in school are common among adults of all ages. In fact, in dream surveys, being in school typically ranks among the top five dream categories in frequency, even among adults who have been out of school for decades (e.g. Mathes et al., 2014). In those studies, participants simply marked, on a check-off list, the topics they had dreamed about. Such studies tell us nothing about the nature of the dreams.

Are school dreams pleasant or unpleasant? What happens in the dreams? To address these questions, I used my last blog post to conduct an informal survey. I asked readers to describe, in the comments section, any recurring dreams they have about being in school; to indicate on a five-point scale how pleasant or unpleasant the dreams typically are; to indicate when they last had such a dream; and to indicate how long it had been since they were a student in the type of school (elementary school, middle school, high school, or college) at which their dream is usually set.

One hundred and twenty eight readers responded to the survey. In response to the question of the level of school involved in their dreams, 73% mentioned high school, 34% mentioned college, 12% elementary school, and 7% middle school or junior high school. (These totals add to more than 100% because some noted more than one setting for their recurring dreams.) Here are the other main findings:

Nearly everyone rated their school dreams as unpleasant, nobody rated them as pleasant.

I asked people to rate the pleasantness of their recurring dream on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 = very pleasant, 2 = somewhat pleasant, 3 = neither pleasant nor unpleasant, or equally pleasant and unpleasant, 4 = somewhat unpleasant, 5 = very unpleasant.

None of the respondents rated their recurring dream as 1 or 2. Only two respondents rated their recurring dream as a 3. One of those two rated her dream as a 3 rather than a 4 or 5 only because her “massive sense of relief” on realizing in the later part of the dream that she had already finished school negated the unpleasantness of the earlier part. All of the rest rated their school dreams as a 4 or a 5, with the average being midway between 4 and 5.

Some described their dreams as going beyond anxiety to a level they identified as panic. Here are a few quotations illustrating the intense emotions experienced:

• I just keep doing circles in the hallways, trying to get to classes. Nothing ever works out. I am scared, nervous, anxious, alone, and I can't do anything to change it. I wake up feeling depressed, insecure, unsure, unsettled, in my younger years, crying.

• I wander around, panicked, looking for the correct classroom, I dread having the teacher lay into me about missing classes

• [I am] completely freaked out that I know nothing and am going to fail the class. The feeling of not knowing and of impending failure is so intensely gut wrenching.

• I wake up with my heart pounding every time.

• But then, all of a sudden, there even popped up a whole new subject about which I hadn't been informed. But I had to make a written exam about it. I am panicking, I am in agony; all I have studied for, all the hard work was in vain, no degree.

• I feel embarrassed in the dream and confused about why I am a bad student, but I also know it to be true and unchangeable. I feel completely unempowered and ashamed.

• I am in despair-- why did I enroll again in classes I don't need [and will fail]? I am running the halls wondering what to do.

• I always wake up, soaked with sweat and shaking. It's always a very vivid dream. It's one that I can remember with lots of details long after waking up, unlike most dreams that I have.

• The dreams always revolve around me walking around, either high school or college, panicked and on the verge of tears because I can't remember my schedule. … I wake up sweating, with my heart pounding, and it takes quite a bit of time for the adrenaline to wear off.

For some, the panic is modulated by the simultaneous awareness, within the dream, that they are, in real life, done with school. Here’s an example:

• I always have a feeling of dread bordering on panic, but yet at the same time an awareness that I am an adult and it really doesn't matter.

The most common school dream themes are (a) missing classes all term and therefore being likely to fail, and (b) being unable to find the classroom.

My own most common school dream is one in which I suddenly discover, in high school or college, that I have been enrolled in some class that I was unaware of or had forgotten about and never attended. It is the day of the final exam, and I am searching through dungeon-like hallways trying to find the classroom. I finally get to the classroom, late, and I realize that I have no idea what the subject is and can’t make heads or tails of the exam questions. I used to think this was an odd dream, probably representing some unique aspect of my personality, but now, in this survey, I have learned that this is the most common of all school dreams, at least among those who responded to the survey.

To conduct the qualitative analysis, I first read all of the dream reports and made notes concerning the themes that seemed to occur frequently. I then reread all of the reports and coded each dream for the presence or absence of each theme that I had previously listed.

The most common theme was that of having missed a course all semester, usually in high school but sometimes in college, and then having to take a final exam in that course. This theme was reported as recurrent by 69 (54%) of the respondents. It was often accompanied by feelings of embarrassment and stupidity about missing the course, anxiety or panic about impending failure, and feelings of dread about having to spend another year in school because of this failure.

The second most common theme was that of being lost in school (usually high school), unable to find the right classroom, accompanied by embarrassment, shame, anxiety, or panic about showing up late. This theme was reported by 55 (43%) of the respondents.

As in the case of my own recurrent dream, the theme of not being able to find the class was often combined with the theme of missing the class all semester. A total of 35 respondents (27%) reported a recurring dream in which they had missed a course all semester and now, late in the term, typically on final exam day, they were searching for the classroom and couldn’t find it. WHY THIS DREAM? I have no idea. If you have an idea, please tell me in the comments section.

A variation of the can’t-find-the-class dream is the can’t-open-my-locker dream. Thirteen respondents reported this theme, typically accompanied by feelings of anxiety or panic about being late for class or unable to attend class because of not being able to get the correct materials or their class schedule out of their locker.

Another common theme is that of having to go back to school as an adult.

The third most common dream theme—after the missed-class-all-semester and can’t-find-the-classroom themes—is the theme of being forced, as an adult, to go back to high school, or even elementary school, because of some bureaucratic snafu or the discovery that the dreamer had failed to meet some requirement. Twenty-one (17%) of the survey respondents reported such a recurrent dream. Here are two examples:

• In the dream, I'm already a doctor in practice (which I am in real life), but I suddenly realize that I never actually graduated from high school, and I have to go back and finish high school classes. It always happens in the middle of a semester, too, so I know I'm going to be behind, and the teacher is going to wonder where I've been the whole semester. … Even while dreaming, I know that I'm already working as a doctor, and it seems crazy that I have to go back and finish something at high school level. When I wake up, I always have the same feeling: "I knew that couldn't be right! I graduated from high school 35 years ago.”

• I am forced to go back to high school at my current age and relearn all of the material in order to graduate. All of the people with whom I went to high school are still there and are still their same high school age, but I am older, my current age. … I feel like a bad student, which is frustrating, because I have a graduate degree! I feel trapped by the pointlessness of the school bureaucracy and the ridiculousness of being made to repeat high school. I contemplate dropping out but simultaneously feel mortified by such a decision.

School anxiety dreams can continue for decades after graduation.

I asked the survey respondents to indicate the number of years that had passed since they had last been a student in the kind of school that was the setting of their recurrent dream. The responses varied from about 5 years on up to about 60 years. On the basis of those responses, I made guesses about the age of each participant and found a range from 20 years up to 77 years old, with most (72%) being in their 30s or 40s. Regardless of age, respondents generally indicated that the dream had remained pretty much the same over the years, though some indicated that, with time, it had become less frequent and in some cases less anxiety-provoking.

Here are three examples of reports from respondents in their 60s:

• [Finished high school in 1970.] I have many recurring dreams about school, …all of them riddled with anxiety. … [In one], I am even back in elementary school. In this variation I am still my grown up self or at least college age in a classroom of elementary school children. … In another …, the setting can be high school or college, I have somehow totally forgotten to attend a class for an entire semester and I still have to take the final exam.

• I am over 60 and am so surprised that so many others have the same dream as me. I am in the hall of my HS and cannot find my classroom. It is about a level 5 of stress. Then I doubt myself even further and am unsure of my class schedule. Then my memory fails me even more and I can't remember what days I have a class or if I am still in that class. The dream usually ends there but I sometimes become aware that I already graduated.

• I am 62. I have had frequent dreams of being in middle school walking up stairs, walking down hallways in search of my room. I also have dreams of getting lost trying to get to college, somehow I end up walking thru corn fields, prairies, needing to catch a train. Sometimes I make it to class but if I do then I haven't done my homework, or I missed too many classes.

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Source: Basic Books, with permission

Well, I’m not Freud or Jung, I don’t have a theory of why these particular dreams are so common or what they might mean about the mind’s inner workings. How sad, though, that schooling, which is more or less required by law of all young people, produces, as one of its consequences, a lifetime of bad dreams. Hmm. I wonder if it would be possible to devise a way for our children to become educated that would leave them with a lifetime of good dreams, not bad ones. Wouldn’t that be something worth striving for? Any ideas how to do that?

It’s also interesting to me that many of the respondents indicated that they actually were very good, punctual students, who rarely missed classes and never failed. I wonder if we “good students” actually have worse dreams about school than those “bad students” who sat in the back of the class and shot spitballs. If you know any adults who were “bad students” ask them about their school dreams and tell me about them in the comments section here.

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This blog is, among other things, a forum for discussion. Please share your thoughts on the subject of school dreams with me and other readers. As always, I prefer if you post your thoughts and questions here rather than send them to me by private email. By putting them here, you share with other readers, not just with me. I read all comments and try to respond to all serious questions if I think I have something worth saying. Of course, if you have something to say that applies only to you and me, then send me an email.

Very interesting blog post. I recently retired from teaching in a public school, and was, of course, a student in my younger years. I have had bad dreams of the classroom both in the role of a lost student and in the role of a lost teacher. The dreams related to not being prepared in both kinds of dreams. I think the common denominator in explaining both dreams is the culture of testing and grading. The solution, I think, lies in getting rid of these things. Let students learn what they want, how they want without all of the pressure. Let teachers be mentors and guides and not task-masters, judges, and disciplinarians.

Last-night's dream: Humboldt college is prepaid and I was in a happy, hopeful state of excitement. Finally given this chance I was going to prove my worthiness of a real education. I move into my dorm meet my roommates & am told my funding was taken back. I call the dean and he says that my father, brother and his girlfriend have taken my college money to attend the college as I am now homeless, ashamed and humiliated.
Reality: at 40 I applied and was accepted then had to give up on my dream of an education because my husband wouldn't give me the money that we earned together and I gave up on my dream.
My adoptive mother, father & brother often humiliated, shamed and told me repetitively that I was stupid and worthless.
Yesterday: I was looking at northern cal destinations for an up coming vacation. I was looking in Mendocino County. Yet the college did not cross my mind in the moment.
My vivid Dreams seem to be a mixture of my past & present where being humiliated is the recurring theme from everyone in every dream. For me, Being adopted is humiliating to me throughout my entire life on a regular basis. Feeling humiliated just writing this dream accounting.

Hey...i was a bad student! I had the shame and panic attacks while in high schoo I was at a girls private school so didn't show up for most of it. Oddly enough i managed to pass some of the exams and later through a tutor and self study managed to get to university.
many of these dreams focus on the inhuman bureau cratic nature of modern schooling. ..lost in faceless buildings...mismanagement of schedule s ...and a lack of attachment to any human figure who can provide support or guidance in this souless system. The only time I learned anything was when i had a positive relationship with a human being either as a partner or study director

I don't have dreams about school because i have spent the last 30 years processing my emotions and the sources of my anxiety. Maybe that was my real education although i still study and recently took a harvard seminar and got 6 credits.. ( so proud!)

Wow, what a discovery to learn that so many people also have recurrent unpleasant dreams about school. I don’t recall exactly when it started but once in a while (maybe a couple times a year) I have this very unpleasant category 5 horrible nightmare that I am back in high school. It’s a strange dream; the school seems dark and empty; there is no one around. When I go into the classroom, it’s actually bright -- not somber like the rest of the school -- but I get such an unsettling feeling of failure, of not belonging, as if I hadn’t really attended classes at all that year, that’s because in the dream I did miss most of the classes all year long. Now, here I am at the end of the school year showing up in class. My classmates are all there and have kept up with their schoolwork and attendance, they look at me in disbelief thinking: Where have you been all year? What are you doing here now? What are you going to do? They are all pretty much done, and I feel like I messed up, I felt behind, I didn’t keep up with my peers. I feel like an outsider who does not belong there. I am confused and don’t know what to make of it. When I wake up, it’s so incredibly relieving to know it was all a dream. Here is the background: I attended high school in South America. It was a private school. I finished high school 25 years ago. I was a good student, super responsible, never missed class, but was always overwhelmed with schoolwork, to the point that I quit all extracurricular activities so I could have enough time to do all the homework that I had and study for all the exams.

Many of the anxious and fearful dreams seem to be about not having control, which is exactly the situation in K-12. In college one has some control, but it's limited by restrictive general ed. and major requirements. There is often little control over the specified work in courses.

It would be really interesting to see if Sudbury Valley graduates or grown unschoolers experience any recurring dreams about schooling/learning and how they compare.

Based on certain theories regarding why we dream stated in this article, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-literary-mind/200911/what-do-dreams-do-us , It makes sense that the unpleasant recurring dreams about school might be our way of doing self-psychotherapy and/or running the school "simulation" over and over in order to "practice" for how we could/should have responded or would respond if put in those situations in the future.

I just discovered this article after reading and commenting on another article by Peter Gray. I was home schooled throughout my elementary and high school years, not attending an institution until college. I do not have anxiety filled dreams about my schooling and I have many good memories. I now have twins that I homeschool or "unschool". We enjoy homeschooling, but I have considered putting them in a traditional type of school, wondering if I am up to the challenge (one of my children has learning difficulties) and wanting to do what is best for them. Every time I look into it I am very put off by the cookie cutter system of education and the long hours of school and homework that my friends, and even a teacher friend has complained about. My husband struggled in school, and he is a smart & skilled person, who now has severe anxiety. I've often thought his panic attacks were a result of an unstable childhood and dysfunctional home, but I do believe his school struggles are a contributor as well, especially after reading this article.

First: I am no psychologist and I am not even well read on today's psychological research, so what I'm writing is more-less based on self-observation.

In reading the examples presented above I had the impression: this isn't about school, this isn't about working through personal memories of school, this is about assessing one's present direction in life, one's preparedness for something that matters, etc. The dream-experience evokes certain feelings and it is those feelings which contain hints and clues about one's present situation in life.

In a culture in which there is no formal schooling these feelings would be linked to other testing situations in life which require a certain preparedness or willingness to adapt and find us wanting, like going into the woods in order to perform some chores - and indeed our fairy tales are full of them. In our culture we can typically link them to school, not necessarily because school is bad, but because school is a place into which we go in order to build internal structures which are not already in place and the development of which is not prompted by a spontaneous inner urge, but required by the environment in which we live.

If the dreamer takes the feeling evoked by the dream and relates it to his present life situation (instead of being sucked into the dream-story which evoked the feeling), they are getting a valuable hint about where they might need to direct attention. Paying attention to the details of the dream-story, on the other hand, seems more like distracting oneself from the real communication.

This comment is very much on point. I think to have had a different kind of educational experience would not lead to good school-themed dreams so much as it would lead to other-themed bad dreams. Dreams are often in the context of fear/anxiety and preparedness, and school is the perfect setting for evoking that sensation in most people.

I was a good student, and while I can't say I particularly enjoyed school, I didn't really mind it much either. I was good at it and not usually too stressed by it, except during the times it got hard (mostly in college, and occasionally in high school).

I too have the recurring school-themed dream, particularly where I find out I've been signed up for classes that I haven't been taking all semester and the end of the semester is near and I'm going to fail the final. I had one of those not too long ago (probably in the past few months), considering I remember it fairly vividly. My dreams are usually set in high school, sometimes college. I also find that I don't know where my locker is or what my locker combination is. Or what my schedule is or where my classes are. I think in my most recent dreams I figured out a way to go to the front office to get that information, but I had to do some trickery or something to make them think I hadn't gotten the starting information that I was supposed to along with everyone else, when in reality the reason I hadn't was because I had already finished high school. Though why I would have to do high school again when I knew I'd already finished it is a mystery.

I also have had the theme of trying to figure out what country I'm studying in. (I moved to a new country and got married after graduating college, so if I were to go back to school, I'd probably do it in the country I am now, even though I preferred my university back home.) I also couldn't remember whether or not I'd gotten a masters degree. I actually had a dream where I felt confused on that, then relieved because I realized I had. Except, in real life, I actually haven't. I only got my bachelors.

I'm sure some of this content ties into my real life circumstances, as I have considered many times whether I should go back to school to get a masters, and I'm still on the fence about it.

Some of the worst recurring dreams that I have: I am an adult, someone goes over my records and discovers that I didn't complete the requisite courses and I have to go back (as an adult) to my old high school to make up the work I missed. Then I'm stuck going up and down and around well-lit but never ending hallways trying to find my unfindable classroom. No one is ever mean to me in these dreams but there is a pervasive sense that it will never be over. I go around and around the school, rarely finding the room I'm looking for and when I do, I have to sit in one of those godawful desks that the chair is attached to...totally uncomfortable,I feel completely out of place

The correlation? High school was torture for me. I hated doing homework, and assigned readings, etc.Gym class for me was nothing short of mortifying, and the whole experience was one to be endured, with a few fond memories being the exception to a mass of horrible, anxious ones. Ironically, (although I was an underachieving student and frequently absent) I was a National Merit Scholar, received a deluge of solicitations from universities all over the country and did go on to earn a BA. And I never have any bad dreams about college!

I have had a recurring dream for about twenty years of needing to take my A level exams (university entrance exams) but of not knowing when the exams would be.

A little background: despite being classified as an "A" student during the majority of my time at school, when I reached the time to do my A level exams (university entrance exams), I found myself struggling. I didn`t think the previous five years had sufficiently prepared me for the two year A exam cram and I found the teaching poor during these two years. Therefore, I began to skip lessons as I was of the opinion that I could get through the A level exams if I prepared myself. I was right, I did get the results I needed to get into university. However, I was aware that my approach brought criticism from both my peers and teachers.

I took my A levels in 1990 but from around 1995 onwards I have intermittently had a dream where I know I have an A level exam, but I don`t know when it will be nor where it will be. The dream usually ends with my realising I already have my A levels and then I wake up.

My most common recurring dream was that my alarm didn't wake me up and I was late for school. I would (in reality) get out of bed, frantically shower, and get dressed. When I would look at my clock it would only be around 2:30am. I would be wrecked the next day at school.

I participated in the survey (one of the 13 that has locker dreams), but when I read your article I also remembered that I often have dreams where I'm back in high school as an adult because I never finished after all. I hate that one.

I wrote about my recurring dream of having to go back to finish my elementary school in my comment to previous blog.

I think it comes from my general feeling that most of my education was a lost time.
I was generally a very good student and I spent most of my days in school bored to death.

I think that my dream of having to go back just reenacts and emphasises the whole "waste of time" feeling since, in that dream, I always have some other more important responsibilities (like work or taking care of my daughter), yet, I'm still forced to attend meaningless classes in my elementary school with small kids.

I was a smart student but completely unmotivated by the time I was halfway primary school (age 8. It's a bit different here in the Netherlands). In high school I really started acting out my frustrations with the 'social' interactions and the limited class material. If I could get away with it I sat reading fiction or non fiction at the back of the class or was absent completely. If things didn't go my way I was able to disrupt the entire class, pulling others along with it, making me a teacher's nightmare. I changed schools two times in high school. By the time the final exams came around I managed to pull myself together somehow and get through with decent grades. I started art school but couldn't bring myself to do better or find new motivation, so I quit. At that time the dreams started coming. Even though consciously I was done with the whole thing, it seems like my subconscious didn't agree and I still judged myself to be a failure.
The dreams always followed along the lines of: I was my younger self again and trying to find my way through a maze-like school, trying to find my class, a teacher, my books. I then got told that I hadn't done enough and/or hadn't been present enough to complete a class by exam, or had flunked in absentia. Fellow students would laugh in my face if I asked anything and teachers would say extremely hurtful things about being undeserving of their help.
I would wake up in sweats, with my heart beating fast, mouth dry and a panicked feeling of having to go to class. The feeling would linger for at least half a day.

After working as a self-taught translator for a few years and picking up general self-study into anything I liked, the dreams became fewer and less intense. Two years ago I came across Charles Eisenstein's de-schooling principles and picked that up as exercizes so I wouldn't unconsciously pass my school habits on to my children, who are being homeschooled. This has been so succesful that when the last time the dream started again I was my adult self and found myself happily telling everyone that of course I hadn't been there for the classes, as they were boring as heck and I didn't need them anyway, and if they would be so kind as to shut up and let me get on with it if they had nothing helpful to say. That was more than a year ago. I'm 32 years old now, and happily deschooled.

My feeling is that these anxious dreams are partly caused by the complete disconnect between 'doing well' and 'feeling well' that is prevalent in schools and often also completely overlooked by even the most caring parents. If a student is 'doing well', noone is bothered to ask the question: 'Are you feeling well?'. If a student isn't 'doing well', the question isn't asked either, but every effort is aimed towards making students 'do better'. Even when you come across that rare teacher that actually dares to ask the question, the school system is completely lacking in any solutions to help students feel better, except for some desultory hours spent in a counsellors office. They usually focus on the home situation and are unable to change anything about the goings on in the school. Seeing that adults are powerless to change anything about the negative aspects of school increases the helplessness experienced by students, and that, I feel, is carried along into the rest of a lifetime and becomes the stuff of nightmares.

This is so interesting. When I first began reading your blog post, I thought it didn't pertain to me. As I read further, I realized I've had many recurring dreams about returning to college. I am back in my college town. I'm sort of confused about why I'm there again. I often have trouble finding my classes in the dream. Or I'm deciding about changing the direction of my life in the dream. It feels really significant. Interestingly, I feel like overall I had a very positive experience with college (and actually all of my schooling.) Sure there were some difficult times and classes, but I was a "good" student and usually enjoyed the experience. So I wonder why we do have these recurring dreams if we don't have negative feelings about our schooling experience. I have speculated about my own college dreams that it's me wanting to go back 20 years to that time when I was making so many life-affecting decisions about major, job, romantic interests, etc.

Some say school is our society's rite of passage, something that makes no sense to do you just got to do it to be considered an adult. In some cultures you have to sleep alone in a scary place, some make you cut yourself, walk on hot coals... As a rite of passage it only makes sene school has to be a bit traumatic. If it weren't in wouldn't be serving it's purpose.

I am 62 years old and I continue to have two recurring nightmares about school. In one, I am at school and, suddenly, it is night-time after hours, and nobody but me is still in the building. The school is locked from the outside, dark, silent, and very creepy. I cannot get out. In the other one, I am on some kind of ladder or scaffold outside the school building, trying either to get in or to get out (changes with the dream) of an upper story window. All at once, I realize that someone has locked the window and taken away the ladder. I am just left hanging there with no way in and no way back down. FYI, I was always an A student involved in many school activities and obedient to the rules. I hated school (especially grade school and junior high) with all of my being and at the end of each school day, I would begin to dread having to go back for the next day.

I was fascinated to read the article and comments and wanted to add that I also have the "not knowing you're registered for a class" dream. For me, it's always college-level.

What was, until recently, more frequent, was my twice-a-year dream (usually timed at the start of each new semester) of teaching a class and having the students run wild in the classroom with me helpless to get them to sit down and listen. In some versions, the students literally start jumping out the windows of the classroom (first floor classroom, so no gory injuries).

The teaching dreams started after I completed my second year of teaching high school (2000) and have continued through me getting my PhD and becoming a college professor. I called them my teaching anxiety dreams and counted on having one every semester. Strangely, since the birth of my second child, I haven't had one (about two years now).

This topic is so interesting to me; I think I'll have some of my students read this article this fall and discuss/write about it in class (English professor).

Kelly, if your students do talk or write about this topic, I (and I'm sure, other readers) would be interested in what they say. You could add another comment on that to this post, or invite your students to comment. -Peter

It has been a few years but I did have what I considered nightmares about school off and on for about 15 or so years after I stopped going. Being late for class, realizing I was in my underwear, having to go back as an adult, I am sure there where more if I wanting to think hard about it. I hated school so much I spent more time trying to avoid it and come up with reasons to miss it then I did anything else.

For the past 20 years or longer, every few years or so, I have this recurring dream in which I've registered for an early morning college course, but I forgot to go to it. In my dream, I realize that it's the end of the semester and I never showed up for the class. I panic. I'm going to fail. I'm screwed. I go up and down stairs in multiple buildings looking for the class. Usually I wake up at this point, with nothing resolved. A few months ago, I had the dream again. But this time, I resolved it. I found the class! I had sex with the professor and passed the class! I woke up feeling relief that I finally had reached a resolution in the dream and could move on. I hope it's over. I hope I never have that dream again. Thank you Dr. Gray for doing this bit of research. I thought I was the only one.

That would get me back into a classroom.
You could pay me.
You could drive me to class in a limo.
Cook gourmet meals for me and for my family.
Wash my clothes, sweep the floors, clean the bathroom. Pay for everything... books, tuition, incidental expenses.

And there is no way I would ever go back to school. As a good student (mostly A grades) I did okay there academically. But the anxiety caused by school is still with me today, hence the 'isn't enough of anything' remark.

I work with children in a school setting. And 99% of them (a non-scientific figure I just made up) HATE school. Many of them have a particularly difficult time as K and 1st grade students, but by the time they reach grade 2, have resigned themselves to being there.

I have dreamed of being back in high school at least 50 times over the 38 years since my own high school graduation. All of those dreams are full of anxiety, fear, anguish, angst and anger at being stuck in school AGAIN when I thought I had escaped the institution.

My two most common school dreams are the two most common dreams - which is incredibly fascinating - especially since both scenarios seem pretty far-fetched and rare. I love that our brains (and neuroses) are so similar.

My other most common nightmare is about working in a restaurant (I have about 10 years of restaurant experience but haven't worked in one for years) and I have this one at least a few times a year. Very rarely I can remember in the dream that I'm actually a therapist and that I no longer serve food, but for the most part it's panic inducing and when I wake up it takes me a while to remind myself that I am no longer a food server.

I think that restaurant nightmares among staff and ex-staff are really common and I would love to hear about people's experiences with that as well.

Thanks for the article - the commonalities are incredibly interesting!

My husband was a horrible student in high school - a troublemaker who barely graduated. After high school he went into the Navy, then started college in his early twenties. He was a dedicated college student, who worked very hard.

I asked about his dreams, and he said he doesn't dream about high school at all, but occasionally has anxiety-filled dreams about college.

Thank you for sharing this. It is interesting and it fits with my hypothesis that those who take school most seriously and do best, by the school's rules, are generally also those who are most stressed and anxious about school, most afraid of failure, and these lasting dreams are reflections of that stress and anxiety. I'd love to hear from others who were "horrible" students. -Peter

The very night before I read this article, I had one of these recurring dreams again. There's always a large, modern school -- I think I always go to the first class is each of my subjects -- but by the time the dream rolls around, I go to the school each day, but never to any classes. I know I'm going to get "caught," and that I will be yet another year behind my contemporaries, but there is increasingly nothing I can do about it. It's always a very vivid dream and literally takes me hours for it to wear off. Even after I remember that I graduated high school, it still stings. I participated to a great degree in the college experiences of my children and friends. and certainly that counts as the failure in my life -- I excelled at doing school work for other people, two or three levels above anything that I myself achieved. But for some reason, this recurring dream dumps me back into an area where I excelled in reality. It never occurred to me that this dream is a common one. I'm kind of glad to know about that. And I can't help but wonder if they had the same recurring dreams as I had when I actually WAS in high school. The dances or parties I went to and lost my date -- or discovered that I was dressed in my nightgown without even any underwear -- every bit as terrifying as being unable to find a single classroom for all the subjects I'm registered for. Brrrr ... fear and failure, common themes.

..... and still haunted by these dreams of high school that would have taken place over half a century ago. I do NOT dream of myself doing this as an adult amongst young people. In the dream, I AM one of the young people. And never in the dream do I get to the part about being "caught" -- I'm just on a fast train going downhill toward discovery. Next stop "Discovery." Doors opening on the left.

I played the hand waving, jump for the dog biscuit game through 7th grade, then told my Mother it was a boring waste of time. From 70 years ago, I'll never forget her words "Just put up with it, you can't change it !!"--what a "sentence". For the next 5 yrs. I quit responding to teachers--just waited for the bell. If a game is based on competition and makes no sense, why bother, which is how many boys must feel, as though being constantly pinned in wrestling, for 12 years, but still forced to participate--so as to forever remember the humiliation of defeat? I've never found a reason to ask a teacher anything. In Scouts we were to spend time with an adult in their occupation. I chose a minister, though I hated church---but because he raised bees. When choosing a farm machine, or most other interests, what a pleasant contrast, to read farmer reviews relating their experiences, with no ulterior motives, other than helping, versus competitive, petty school games, all for Bribes. I caused no trouble in school--had outside interests. When drafted for Korea, in 1951, chose 3 yrs. in the Marines vs. 2 Army. Boot camp was psychologically interesting, but the intensity couldn't last, after which the mickey mouse reminded me of school and I rebelled, quietly. Peter graciously stopped to visit, a few hot summers ago and because of nervousness around an intellectual, instead of explaining how I envisioned a movie of kids in a Sudbury Valley Non-School adjoining this 175 acre farm, I rambled about borrowing a military item, for which I would've received 6 mo. brig time. John Holt believed that just being out of school, for whatever reason, was better than being subjected to it; however, those that have never experienced school may wonder, just as some males may wonder if they could take the military, to which my saying it doesn't take 3 yrs. to find out, is no help to them.

I compare the damage done to our soil and human health by chemical farming, with that done to our human and societies health by compulsory-democratic schooling. More are becoming aware of organic farming and an individual, with land, machinery, etc., can make a living and receive inner satisfaction from it; however, other than what can be a lonely road of unschooling or having the tuition and physical proximity to a Sudbury Valley (with space), there's not much. Monsanto, with it's millions, just bought more corrupt politicians, allowing it to continue spreading it's poisons. Our government schools, with their billions, have stifled the real purpose of compulsory schooling, to where it must be the best/worst kept secret ever. I would gladly give the farm to a Sudbury Plus, but even if it were free of all government regulations and no tuition, it would be all but impossible to find any participants in this area, when parents were told that there would be NO TEACHING OF READING or the accepted forced TEACHING of other subjects.

A woman impounded in a Japanese prison camp during the 2nd War concluded that women tend to build a nest, in their confinement, where as men were more apt to bang their heads against the bars or plan an escape. Patricia Sexton's "The Feminized Male" implies that schooling neutralizes males, plus to days diminished testosterone levels due to toxic foods and the insecurity many must have, with their often worthless degrees, student debt, living in their parents basements, with little hope of a family on the horizon. Girls are more apt to smile and respond eagerly to their teacher/prison guard and feel anxious about doing well and pleasing them. For every rebellious Myrna, there are 10+ males stuck in the same mire, resenting and resisting a system that is perfectly self regulating and can't change. If I'd have known back then, what I know about schools now, hopefully I would've had the courage and insight to refuse both attending school and military induction. I surely wouldn't have had mickey mouse dreams about them coming after me, knowing they couldn't break me. The sad part is, all the potential that is wasted, fighting sick systems, instead of kids being surrounded by adults (not teachers) pursuing worth while passions, that give them such inner satisfaction, that they would do them for no pay.

Hello Peter,
I firstly would like to say that I am at worst a novice dream analyst, it is a subject that I have been interested in for quite some time and put a little time into interpreting them to better understand what I was seeing. I want to say that this dream may have to do with taking on new challenges and our inner willingness to accept the challenge. I came here to this post due to my searching for information on a topic I am doing a thesis on in school at present and saw this, so my dyslexia or ADDHD brought me here. I say that I think it's to do with new challenges because I myself had a similar dream not long before starting school again, and this being some 30 plus years since I have been in school last.
Like yours and many others I saw here it was the same in I was looking for my locker, my books, in what seemed like a new school so yes trying to find my way on some map of the school to classrooms, and just like yours, when I finally got to my class I was late, I had to knock on the door to get in and of course it was just in time for a test on something. Though myself I wasn't filled with dread and loathing of what was to come. I can remember telling the teacher that I was sorry for the interruption, that I was kind of new there, and I hoped I wouldn't be lost finding classes for to long. The teacher agreed with that and that's when I was handed my test, I even said " a test already aye, well, lets see what I know about this now". Now I don't remember if I passed or what there, I think I may have woken up soon after even, but I don't remember feeling any sense of panic or embarrassment, just a sense of wondering how many times this was going to happen before I got the hang of where and what I would be doing there.
For the record if you wish to add this to your studies, I am a male, I am 48 years of age, and like I stated; this dream came sometime around the time I was going to be starting school I believe, so it a have been shortly after but I thinking back on it I am fairly sure it was before. I hope this is helpful to you in your studies and that it may shed some light on some of what the other peoples dreams may have been in context to.
Thank you, Erin R.

It would be interesting to know the gender ratio to the dream blog vs. other blogs; the responders that are or were tchrs. and to what degree they question or have considered changing or abandoning a system which has in most cases resulted in negative dreams?

Am implying that our factory farms and schools have similarities that are not healthy.
I agree, that those whose hay yields keep diminishing with no input, are miners, not farmers. Dr. Mercola's interviews with Paul Gautschi, film "Back to Eden" on wood chip gardening; Gabe Brown regenerating 2,000 tillable N.D. acres and what looks like rather flat depleted land in Ga.. (below) Add some biochar and one can REGENERATE SOIL, along with the "inner satisfaction" of making a living and feeling good about it. Sixty years ago I put these 50 tillable brickyard clay acres in the Fed. Govt's "Soil Bank" for 10 yrs., where no harvesting or grazing was allowed, then in the Conservation Reserve Program another 10 yrs., with little impact on soil health. I didn't have another 1,000 yrs. to raise the organic matter to what it is now and I wanted to farm the soil, not the government.

If younger and I had detoured the distraction of school and was passionate about wood gas pickups, I'd have visited Wayne Kieth in Alabama and made him an offer no farmer would refuse; same for a healthy soil passion, to N.D., Ga. or wherever someone was/is DOING it; for biochar ?? haven't heard what I'm looking for, but know my answers wouldn't be found in a school--besides, I don't have another 1,000 yrs..

Imagine, that school/schooling has become this country’s religion. Ignore “separation of church and state,” the vast educational bureaucracy, huge athletic stadiums and sprawling cathedrals of learning, a powerful teachers union, support of every politician, all institutions, the media and generations of parishioners, baptized by a minimum of eight years compulsory attendance. Ignore the fact that “our educational system” came from the Protestant German Prussians, as the most efficient system for CONTROLLING, not EDUCATING, the masses, and we have taken it far beyond what they could have imagined. Forget/overlook, the meaning of compulsory attendance in a system based on distrust, windowless rooms, locked doors, security cameras everywhere, law enforcement in the halls, prisoner-guard relationships — terms applied only to “real prisons.” Remember, this religion is based on the belief that you can lead a horse to water and MAKE IT LOOK AS THOUGH IT IS DRINKING, with a system of threats, rewards, and distractions, essential to most religions, that the experience of sitting and listening is the best teacher and that we learn by talking, not doing. Watch how eagerly young children explore their world, without tests, grades or fear on their own, discovering how to walk, talk, read, and spell Google, which in less than one second can bring up more information that the SEEKER is searching for than all the teachers, schools, libraries, and bribes combined, can force feed.

If you would prefer more pleasant dreams of those many years, at what age and how would you introduce us to living? Thanks, Dick

Katie's fault and "recovering" tchrs. is another one, unless Peter shuts me up. Though I hated sch., put in my time at the local Tchrs. College on the G.I. Bill, where a prof had ed. majors take the Mn. Tchrs. Attitude Inventory. I scored in the 98th percentile and have never seen the test since, but the prof said it couldn't be faked, in response to others joshings. Glen invited me to their 6th gd's. 50th reunion and I asked that he distribute this, but he probably didn't. When Jimmy did whatever, I said nothing, just calmly taped the top of his head with a knuckle, tears rolled down his cheeks and we got along fine--in that prisoner guard relationship, which I no longer believe in. Taping may not be legal today and belittling cuts deeper, but I want neither, They are 68-9 now.

Hi Glen and former cell mates. I don't expect you to read or agree with any of this ramble, but thanks for the invitation. I would enjoy reading about your lives and thoughts for your future, but am not a groupy, socializer, as in the following Letter to the Editor. As you know, life is a series of good and not so good accidents, one of which locked the 23 of us together in that old room, with the rigid rows of desks, September 1959. Before opening day, I accompanied an old school board member for some door to door census during which he warned me that you 11 yr. old, all white, small town, farm kids could be difficult to control. Not 10 minutes into that first day of my playing the "teacher role" and little red haired Jimmy Blanchfield did something and as when one cow tests and finds a break in the fence and starts into the alfalfa field, the farmer better in someway stop it, for the herd also sees the break and is starting to move. Remember the 5th grade teacher, in the adjoining room, was forced to leave after 2 weeks. Summer of 1964, after 2.5 mo. with Mn. Outward Bound, including 45 days on the Quetico canoe trails, I took the poorest of a number of offers and stopped at MSU. Was given free tuition and an assistantship, dealing with. a 6th gd. class that had been filmed in 60 classroom situations, 2/3rds involving discipline. In one, a girl in the front row said to the teacher, "It's 5 min. past recess.". If the college student, to be student tching. the next quarter and standing before a life sized, rear projection screen, said anything apologetic, like "ok", I'd press a button and the class would stampede to the rear entrance, tipping a few chairs on the way. The "right" response was always to physically move close to the instigator, speak with authority, then row by row, have them go quietly to the door. Sept. 1966 my Mother was dying of cancer and I took a fed. funded job at Lewiston. Students, mostly boys, can be picked out in first grade, because they don't take well to being caged. So as not to upset the parents, they started the experimental program with a maximum of 15 second through sixth graders. I had 11 boys and 4 girls. The girls parents were very upset, so were soon put back in the regular class. When asked why they had been chosen, the boys said, "Because we are the dummies", an internal image, which millions are needlessly branded with each day in schools. With only 11 little boys, I decided to test being friendly/human toward them, thus "letting the tooth paste out of the tube". At the same time friend Carole, who had years of holding classes in check, tried the same thing in a Columbus, Ohio suburb, with a regular class, after telling the adm. what she intended to do. She called before Xmas and we agreed, that you can't get the tooth paste back in the tube. Her supervisors said they had never had a tchr.. willing to try being human with the prisoners and offered her privacy in a separate building, with her class. I said it is similar to a herd of cows realizing there is no jolt in the electric wire and no cow experience probably equals crashing out into a green corn field. Both sets of parents were adamant, not wanting their kids to be part of any experiment. We both left at Xmas. Our "democratic-compulsory" school system is based on flawed assumptions.
http://www.winonapost.com/Archives/ArticleID/18167/Time-served

Katie, so you are "recovering", but in that most are surrounded by 99% true believers--recovering from what, how do you know? Maybe women dream more, or tend more to be "true believers", in school and religion? Why are we still more into Christianity, that most other Western nations were drifting away from years ago? "Escape From Freedom"??

I quit playing the school game, as most would do in any game, if FREE to, not liking the game or doing well in it, but I had other "claims to fame". "Hal" Edstrom started me on trpt. when 10, was first chair in the h.s. band in 8th grade, playing trpt. trios, with Hal and his brother Leonard, who founded Hal Leonard, the largest music publishing co.. Quit h.s. band in 10 gd. when playing 2 to 3 nights a week in a 7 piece dance band, always 9PM to 1AM. Started the h.s. hockey team and was leading scorer. Trapped 54 fox when 16 and 71 when 17, from Sept. to Oct. 1948-9 for the $4 bounty, during which I became interested in farming. Outdoor Ed. appealed, getting kids out. Received free tuition and an asstship at Mich. State.. Did some yard work for an old prof., while living in an old station wagon in a campus woods and evidently said something. The old prof turned out to be one of the 4 in my doctoral committee and the first thing he said was "I thought you wanted to blow up the schools" and I said, "They aren't worth the powder, hopefully they'll collapse on their own", which saved me from writing a dissertation on "Examples of and requirements for the ultimate non-school". There are 41 churches in this 26K town and I wouldn't be caught dead in any. To question school would be similar to shouting in church at the congregation, "There is no god!!". How do you know? Who would hear you? What can you do about it?

Peter: are students or schools mentally defective? So few have heard about or could "trust" a SVS; however, one of Sue's 13 yr. old girls visited a Chicago SVS with a friend for a day and was accused of leaving a fork on the table after lunch, which she didn't do, but was brought to trial and found guilty by some manipulators. If animals, including humans, have space where they can evade bullies, there's little to no problem, but when crowded, especially if some have horns, they are unbelievably sadistic !! Seems there should be a minimum acreage for the ultimate SVS, which would be tough, in that most are in large enough communities to find those who believe in the 180 and can afford 7k+. To have such freedom in the confinement of a traditional sch. building = crazy, wild, pandemonium. Obviously few questioned the system or the Drs. medications. 14 seems a common age for this.
http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/solomon-s-song-after-son-s-suicide-winona-family-forms/article_75185b94-892c-5295-bd22-41b4a8d96abb.html

Hello, Peter. I just heard your name for the first time, today at a home schoolers park day in Marin County, CA. I just moved here from New York, and I'm meeting up with some great people in the home schooling community. I am new to home schooling and very excited. And depressed - from all the information I'm learning on my own home schooling journey. But it's all part of waking up. I just read this article on school dreams and I am blown away. I knew some people had bad dreams about school, and that there was often a common theme, but I had no idea how common! My own recurring dream is exactly like yours! I have considered myself "educationally wounded" for years, and as I travel down my path as a parent and a human, I am grateful to learn and to grow. Thank you for your good work!

Yaj--Yes, we are a nation of "educationally wounded"--"walking wounded", most totally unaware of our ailment and how even the tiniest indirect exposure can become a life time ailment. Not until a student commits suicide is a wound visible and immediately diagnosed as a mental illness, after which an educational scholarship is started, to fund the incubator.

Great that you have found a connection among recovering schoolers, but it's like a serious cancer. Most home schoolers--school at homers, 35 yrs. ago, were right wing Christians. Even many that considered themselves unschoolers, taught reading, subjects and aimed for college. A male recently told me of going to college to escape the draft and find what he wanted to do, which I look at as the worst place to find an answer. He is now a tenured economics prof., looking forward to retirement. I wonder if Peter was as excited about his 30 yrs. of teaching as he is trying to make society aware of an ailment he suffered and benefited from?

As kids, how many adults did we see at "their work" other than those playing the "teacher role". Did you ever meet--hang around an adult who had discovered some "worth while" activity, that gave them such "inner satisfaction", that they would do it for no pay? Might that be what Peter is experiencing now? Surely John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and others were/are passionate about warning others of injuries they are still recovering from, much as those in drug and alcohol recovery programs, for no benefit other than helping. My analogy just hit a wall, since our society doesn't want to know it has an addiction--because the addiction is so well oiled and keeps so many off the streets and unemployment lines. Oh well, when you are 84, hopefully you'll still be passionate about something worth while also.

Interesting study. I'd be interested to see how the result might differ between countries, for clues on how to "fix" the system. I myself don't have these kinds of dreams but that doesn't mean my fellow citizens don't - I never asked.

I would guess I don't have these dreams because I've never been to a big school. The biggest I went to had no more than 500 students, and during the three years I went there we all had a "home" area where most of the classes were being taught, so it was the teachers that switched rooms and not the students. Perhaps the system in my country is also easier on the students, as the student only chooses a predefined path, and then shares that path with 20-30 class mates who all go to the same places together for three years.

I think that after spending 12-20 years in school, it's only normal to dream about it once in a while. Because of the familiar expectations of school, when we realize that we're there as students, we scan our minds to see if we are prepared to meet those expectations. Our minds find nothing, because we are not actually in school any longer and have not thought about it for years; panic ensues. It's like dreaming that you are waking on stage to give a speech and realize that you haven't prepared a speech, or that guests are arriving for dinner and you haven't cooked anything. Your mind plunks you down in a situation which you would be prepared for in real life, and you find that you are unprepared.